Dani’s Delicious Dish – Lets talk food in the real world.

A little about me. My name is Danielle (Dani) and I live in Colorado with my amazingly talented artist husband, http://www.ryanricefineart.com, and our sweet and adorable daughter who now is 5 and getting ready for kindergarten. I work full time during the day, and love my job. I fell into the IT field by accident, and I adore it. From a mile high, my life is perfect. Sweet family, sweet job,sweet life. It’s great.

But as we focus in closer, I think I’m just like everyone else. Stressed at work with too much to do, working hard to maintain a healthy and loving marriage and family, stuck in traffic for hours trying to get home, rushing to get a healthy dinner on the table (and one that our daughter will eat is very rare), keep the house clean, keep the kiddo clean, making lunch for the following day, squeezing in a workout wherever I can, and paying bills and balancing a budget.

Day after day, I do pretty much the same thing…however over the last few years I’ve found something really interesting.

I love cooking, and cooking makes me happy.

I am not a chef, nor do I ever want to be one. I am not professionally trained, in fact I burnt pasta for my boyfriend once…it’s ok, he married me anyway. Over the years, my husband has taught me a lot about cooking…like how to boil the water first when making pasta. I’ve also picked up a few tips from cooking books, the food network channel and a lot from my husband.

Cooking is my solace. I have found great pleasure in having nothing really exciting to eat but a bunch of veggies some frozen meat and spices and creating some food that actually is edible! The ability to see things go from a pile of nothing exciting, to something very tempting is so much fun! No matter how chaotic the day, being able to create something from nothing makes me feel like a super hero. I don’t cook every night, and not everything I cook turns out well…I’ll save my strawberry pasta story for another time. But I try, I learn and I try to remember what works best.

My crowning glory were the frog cupcakes I made for our daughter’s 4th Birthday Party. I was amazed at how cute they turned out, and they tasted good too! However my daughter didn’t like the gumdrop eyes.

I’m hoping that this forum will give me a chance to share my stories through cooking, share recipes with other real folks who never have time to cook, but relish every moment they have to dabble in their kitchen.

I’ve been thinking about creating this blog for a while now, and every time I think of it I get excited…but then realize I’m too busy. But this time, at one of the busiest times of my life…I’m doing it.